Games for Social Networks

3 benefits of synchronous gameplay for social games

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 23:34:22 +0300

Asynchronous gameplay has been largely a winning formula in Facebook games. this has largely been due to the fleeting nature of how people use the social network: a short session here and there. It has meant that games have made themselves to adapt to their usersä routines and schedules, rather than the other way around.

Even if asynchronous gameplay still definitely fits like a glove for a certain set of genres and game mechanics (just think Draw Something), here’s three things that synchronicity has going for it:

1. Facebook is banking on real-time
Facebook is striving to engage users with more real-time features, such as the activity ticker at the top right corner. This builds ground for gameplay that pulls players together instantly, there and then, for a match, or another kind of social interaction via game mechanics. The platform shapes and constrains its users’ behavior, and designing for that also applies to developing social games.

2. Real-time interaction, when executed well, creates a strong sense of social presence
This is usually what people mean when they vaguely refer to social games needing to become ‘more social’ and are not able to express what they actually mean. Immediate physical sense of the presence of other players, even if in the form of avatars made of pixels, is one factor in creating a strong sense of social immediacy, but only one - there are others such as reciprocity, whether it is instant or delayed. Nevertheless when executed well, real time tends to trump: the stronger the sense of presence, the stronger the emotions, the stronger the retention - the stronger the game.

3. Synchronous gameplay lends itself for emergent gameplay
When players are able to interact in real time with each other, and possibly the game environment, different combinations of fun emerge. This kind of emergent gameplay often has strong retention and replay factor, as it manages to produce randomness and unpredictability. When coupled with a skill element, creating that elusive ‘one more go’ sensation in the player is closer to the developers fingertips.

So there, a quick take on three benefits of taking the synchronous path with your game. Our studio’s latest game is jumping on the bandwagon, with real-time matches with up to four players, on physics-driven destructible environments. Go and take aim at fellow Penguins and you never know what happens!

https://apps.facebook.com/crazypenguinwars/

Posted via email from Games for Social Networks | Comment »

5 Things you did not know about social games on #GooglePlus

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:55:21 +0200

Developing state-of-the-art social games is really about aspiring for incremental innovation. This entails combining conventional features across genres and platforms. Professional pride emerges from nailing incremental improvements with good results.

With Gangs of Boomtown we are really trying to raise the bar on social games, and we’re happy to partner with Google+ as our exclusive launch platform. Here’s my five cents on why you should try the game out. They are all reasons you might think do not apply to games on social networks - however, this game is built around them:

1) Social games have high production values: It’s not only the art in Gangs of Boomtown, but there’s also a whole host of voice acting in the game. And then there is the soundtrack: Quite unparalleled in social games, with each game area having their its own theme. Headphones recommended!

2) Social games have worlds that can be explored: It’s not quite GTA, but hey, in the scope of the platform we are certainly ambitious. The early levels give you a quick taste of how the game expands, but just wait until you see the later areas!

3) Social games have depth: With the platform and in its context in mind, besides the large world we are introducing familiar RPG conventions here and there - such as skill points as perks - that give more depth to one’s experience of the wild west.

4) Social games are inspired by pop culture: Gangs of Boomtown nods respectfully to the western genre in its various incarnations across film, television, comics, and games. Gangs of Boomtown is a pop culture savvy game, which gives gameplay additional flavor.

5) Social games provide long-lasting fun: Guns are fun - in games, that is. In Gangs of Boomtown we have plenty of them, and plenty of things to shoot at. Don’t tell me that’s not fun! Yet, the fun from shooting is framed with your avatar’s progression throughout the world and its characters, and how you rebuild your Boomtown from the ashes. There’s content to play through for weeks.

If you don’t agree, give it a shot - literally! Tell your friends in either case! ;)

Gangs of Boomtown on Google+

Posted via email from Games for Social Networks | Comment »

Product managers are numerologists, Game designers are magicians

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:45:25 +0200

In this new world of service-based, free-to-play games, the product manager may be the most important person in the company (second only to the game designer; in some cases more important.)

And no, a product manager is not a new term for a “game designer”. A game designer, traditionally at least, didn’t have to worry about the business objectives. They may have been the consumer champion but that was based on instinct and ego. A product manager needs to temper that instinct with data, the ambition with resource limitations, the game design with revenue requirements.

via gamesbrief.com

Nicholas Lovell writes about product management - principally I agree, yet the scope and importance of the PM role is entirely dependent on the company/studio structure. For example, I work in a studio where Product Managers report to Product Owners, whose role is similar to that of an Executive Producer; each production track has a PO, who is in effect the business owner of the project, and therefore also the one who sets requirements and constraints, and ultimately calls the shot. The PO is also in a key role when developing a concept and taking it from an idea into a product. In another studio, the PO/Executive Producer role might be supplanted by the Product Manager altogether.

Nevertheless, in case a product manager does not have such broader production responsibilities s/he can focus on optimizing the game to player (customer) needs, while staying true to the vision. And yes, it is a marketing role only in the sense that product management in the contemporary sense is; it is turning the bullhorn around and listening to the crowd rather than broadcasting to them how great our product or service is.

Also, a shift towards business constraints in the game designer role is evident. This is symptomatic of the current demands for the craft of game design, as more and more platforms embrace the free-to-play model. The bottom line is that one cannot really design games in the free to play context without taking the particular business model into account - free to play affects everything, more or less.

Finally, it is of utmost importance to a successful project and product that game designers and product managers work well together; as I’ve mentioned in some of my talks, it’s like putting magicians and numerologists together: If the combination works, the result is like alchemy: Fun + Virtual goods = Revenue.

Posted via email from Games for Social Networks | Comment »

See you at GDC!

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 09:53:51 +0200

I was invited to give a talk at the Social & Online Games summit - and happy to confirm my participation. More details later!

Posted via email from Games for Social Networks | Comment »

Year 2011 in Facebook Games

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 07:28:55 +0200

The top ten games were created by nine different developers, with only one, wooga, creating two of the ten. While previous years in Facebook gaming have been dominated by one genre (such as farming sims) or one company (such as Zynga), 2011′s most popular games suggest a growing diversity and sophistication of the market.

via insidesocialgames.com

The above quote from Inside Social Games’ summary of the year’s most popular games - our Zombie Lane included! - is quite telling of how the market has matured.

Personally, 2011 ended with very hectic months of product ownership, supervision of game designers, and contributing to studio management while simultaneously creating a new concept; therefore my posting and tweeting has been minimal. Fast times at social game development, indeed.

Nevertheless, I wish my readers and followers Happy Holidays - another exciting and game-changing new year awaits, including awesome product releases from Digital Chocolate soon!

Posted via email from Games for Social Networks | Comment »

RT @SocialGamesGuy: A Guide To Breaking into Social Games http://t.co/URnkqLa via @socialtimes...

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 21:55:11 +0300

RT @SocialGamesGuy: A Guide To Breaking into Social Games http://t.co/URnkqLa via @socialtimes #socialgames

Zombie Lane nominated! Finalists Revealed For 2011 Game Developers Choice Online Awards...

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 10:46:55 +0300

Zombie Lane nominated! Finalists Revealed For 2011 Game Developers Choice Online Awards http://t.co/cZYIitc

Lecture videos from Casual Connect Seattle are online: http://t.co/LxKH40V

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 23:42:13 +0300

Lecture videos from Casual Connect Seattle are online: http://t.co/LxKH40V

Parallel play and social presence in social games

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 21:19:08 +0300

Towards the end of his talk, Begemann touched briefly on the development of social interaction between gamers and its future evolution. Begemann drew comparisons between asynchronous gameplay in social games with the interaction often witnessed between toddlers. “Social games are parallel play. People want to play for themselves. Sometimes, they may walk up to the other and either help or destroy what the other has been doing.”

via gamasutra.com

I’m glad Begemann has been paying attention while listening to me talk at Casual Connect ;) Of course it was Sulka Haro from Sulake who made the initial observation with respect to the notion of parallel play in studies of kids’ play. The point is really about how parallel play creates a particular kind of social presence - asynchronous one, that is. All the outcries about introducing ‘more social’ into social games are essentially about making social presence more intense and acute, something that the audience Begemann is talking about is not ready nor receptive for.

Posted via email from Games for Social Networks | Comment »

Sure, social games are not fun if you don't actually play them, Mr. Bartle

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 23:39:07 +0300

The way they engage their players is not through interesting gameplay, it’s done through extrinsic rewards - basically bribes.” These are badges, pats on the back, and so forth. As he explains; “I’m level two! That person over there, who started playing five minutes ago, is level one! I’m better!

via gamasutra.com

Read the whole Gamasutra write-up, link above. Honestly, Cityville is not fun? Army Attack is not fun? Zombie Lane is not fun? Diamond Dash is not fun? What’s wrong with these people, establishing some high-brow monopoly of fun?

Posted via email from Games for Social Networks | Comment »

The 'more social' school of social games development

Thu, 26 May 2011 10:46:19 +0300

In comparison with these timeless traditions, today’s social games are hardly social. First and foremost, the people we play games with are typically not our entire social graph as defined by Facebook and other social networks. Sure, you may want to share restaurant preferences or parenting tips with your college classmates, but they probably don’t care about your progress in Farmville. We mostly end up playing social games alone, occasionally (or frequently) pinging others who may or may not care. Compare this to a raid with your WoW guild, or a heated weekly poker game, and you catch my drift.

via gamezebo.com

Another post calling for more social in social games - much less concrete than Greg Costikyan’s recent feature at Gamasutra (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6387/). Still, both are rallying for the school of social game design and development where the holy grail of ‘truly’ or ‘more’ social is sought via comparing the social exchanges of Facebook games to other forms of games.

I keep on insisting that you should not necessarily make that comparison to other ‘more social’ games (see last sentence in the quote above) - with Facebook in particular social is very much about the ambient social context, i.e. time and place, the concrete footings on where these games are played. If none of these games would not make money today, the rally for more social would be more relevant - for me, it always chimes as game developers wanting to mould a new game medium into the formats and idiosyncrasies they are comfortable with. People just don’t get over the comparison compulsion I guess, or be able to bend their brains into seeing that sometimes, in a particular context, ‘less’ social can be more. It’s a harder sell as well.

Posted via email from Games for Social Networks | Comment »

My Upcoming Social Games Talks

Mon, 23 May 2011 14:07:03 +0300

Over the next few months, I’ll be appearing in the following events:

Participating in the Social Games 2015: Where to now? panel at Social Gaming Summit Berlin, May 25th
Giving a talk at Casual Connect Seattle, July 19-21st
Giving a talk at Sociality Rocks! Sep 27-28th in Kiev

Posted via email from Games for Social Networks | Comment »

Hail the truism of truly social! #socialgames

Thu, 12 May 2011 10:46:01 +0300

CivWorld is a game-changer for Facebook because it’s truly social.

via pc.ign.com

That sentence from the IGN writeup feels almost a parody of my earlier posts about the ‘social’ in social games, and the widely spread presumption that more ‘games as we know them’ social is better regardless of the platform and its context. Somebody should start tracking the list of social game failures based on this ‘social envy’ of game developers and gamers towards social games’ (=Facebook games) superficial sociality. Nevertheless, hail the truism of truly social!

Another guy without a clue of the free to play model and social games business in general: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2011-05-11-social-gaming-will-crash-ver…

Posted via email from Games for Social Networks | Comment »

The Holy Grail of 'Actually' Social in Social Games

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 13:31:16 +0300

“The irony is that the future of social gaming will actually be social,” Shumaker said. “The evolution of social games is about game content and the mechanics that make interesting social game experiences. Content will move from clicks to storylines. We may require people to think.”

via insidesocialgames.com

This from a RockYou exec talk, reported at Inside Social Games. The piece continues to quote that ‘as social games evolve toward actual social experience…’. Fine, but there is an inherent assumption that at present games are not ‘actually’ social. This is reasoned to not being synchronous. To me, synchronous spells non-casual. Non-casual to me spells relative failure in this space.

‘Actual’ social seems to be the holy grail of game developers, but for me it smells like a trap, something game developers would like to see, without consulting the motivation and practices of social games audiences. If you want a more elaborate take on why I see that less social can be more, check out my recent Casual Connect talk here: http://casualconnect.org/lectures/community-social/state-of-social-in-social-…

Posted via email from Games for Social Networks | Comment »

How to translate your game design experience into the social games space

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 13:32:52 +0300

Reynolds continued, “What I tell new game designers at Zynga to do, particularly the ones that come from the triple-A industry, is I say, ‘Don’t try to make a triple-A game and then try to figure out how to add the social into it. Make a social game and then figure out how to draw on your triple-A experience, to make it better, to make it more fun and more compelling. Those are the people that succeed - the people that come in and really learn social qua social and bring their immense decades of experience to improve it from there.

via industrygamers.com

Brian Reynolds interview at Industry Gamers. Couldn’t agree more.

Posted via email from Games for Social Networks | Comment »

How I learned to love shallow social games

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 21:47:13 +0200

The bottom line is that social game developers have made a LOT of money creating games that you don’t enjoy, and you feel threatened and resentful (and perhaps a little jealous) because the games that are getting so much attention aren’t the ones you enjoy playing. Do you really think that convincing those Farmville-addicted moms to play a metroidvania platformer is the answer? How will you choose to articulate your feelings? i like collecting little lost cows, and you like shooting space demons in the head. Be very careful who you’re calling shallow.

via untoldentertainment.com

Excellent blog post from Ryan Henson Creighton that manages to articulate the futility of social game hate and the issue of ‘shallow’ gameplay, whatever that means.

Posted via email from Games for Social Networks | Comment »

Free-to-play as de facto player expectation in social games

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 17:21:37 +0200

While some are still wondering whether the free-to-play model will really work, our experience indicates that with the mass market, it has become the de facto expectation.

via insidesocialgames.com

Mike Sellers’ post at Inside Social Games is a good post-mortem type of read, with a number of takeaways for social game developers. The above quote also relates to another post on the free-to-play model worth checking out, well at least for the commentary: http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2011/03/what-really-worries-game-design… (I find the author’s take quite misguided, but a number of comments put the topic into perspective.)

Posted via email from Games for Social Networks | Comment »

Is there a time and place for a theory of social game design?

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 14:42:04 +0200

This makes me wonder whether the discussion around bringing more socializing and multiplayer activity to social games is actually a problem that users have, or whether it’s a gap that classical game designers think they see. Should social gaming really mean ‘group play’? Do Facebook users actually care about that kind of interaction? Are we to hear endless riffs on why social gaming needs to be multiplayer and analogies about family board games?

via insidesocialgames.com

Another in-depth post from Tadhg Kelly, commenting on Raph Koster’s thoughts on social mechanics. Lots of insights here, including the above quote that is very much in line with the questions I myself have been raising.

Browsing this, I was reminded about an issue I find myself thinking every now and then. It has to do with the role of developers’ dialogue in the formation of a design vocabulary for a particular field. There is years of game design theory and blogging out there discussing similar issues but it does not really get addressed much in the social games discussion (just look at http://gamestudies.org/0802/articles/sicart for a definition of ‘game mechanics’). Partly, this is probably because of the rift between ‘real’ games and games in Facebook. People don’t see, or don’t want to see the connections.

The brutal truth is that most developer don’t have the _time_ to see, and therefore the theory formation is left to academics or consultants. Most developers always have the dilemma of personal investment in terms of time and confidentiality; they are too busy developing these games on a day-to-day basis to have proper time to engage in that dialogue - at least outside the confines of the company they work for.

I imagine this is the case for most people in the industry. The end result is often that the discussion/research either lags behind, or it is not able to take into account many of the practical aspects of social game development having to do with e.g. the inner workings of the platforms (in business sense, not in technical sense), and therefore easily seems somewhat frustrating, actually.

Yet, as Raph’s example shows, there is plenty to be drawn from learnings in e.g. MMOs. Marks Skaggs and Brian Reynolds have been pretty vocal about their methods of combining their knowledge from other types of games to social games, in similar contexts, as has Brenda Brathwaite. (Oddly Kelly’s piece seems to only refers to his own writings.)

A tangential matter relating to this is that we truly are shooting at a moving target: even if many of the fundamental human social motivations do not change, the functionalities with which the platforms and networks facilitate them, and consequentially how game developers can embrace them to the fullest, change almost weekly. Trying to nail something is bound to end up with a stamp ‘what games were, 6 months ago’ - or, the alternative for the author of such pieces is to take the discussion to a level of abstraction where, one might feel, it appears pretty useless.

It might appear fruitless to reinforce a rift between theorists and practitioners but out of all the corners of the game industry, this is where it exists to its fullest. Therefore a failure of many writings is that they do not make it explicit what is their core audience: the day-to-day design practitioners versus theorists/strategists, who operate in different time zones, so to speak.

To take the positive out of this, the trick is to understand that even if the discussion does not reveal any secret sauces or end up postulating the ultimate theory of social game design, it is there to inspire both as an end to itself.

Posted via email from Games for Social Networks | Comment »

How free installs bloat DAU figures in social games

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 18:14:16 +0200

They try to explain a shift in market share away from the early 2010 Big 5 as the result of the “rise of the Indies” and their “superior game design”. In fact, the entire shift in share is explained by Facebook moving their focus to adding new, 2nd tier Credits partners and nourishing them with free installs. Many of the companies that got these installs did indeed rise, but fell later when the free traffic ran out. I’m not saying it was the Indies fault, it’s just a false conclusion to say the Indies are winning or that game design is the cause. The market declined for everyone, but free installs covered the problem for a period of time.

via blog.digitalchocolate.com

Our CEO’s post is worth reading in full to understand the cause and effect of losers and gainers in Facebook games.

Posted via email from Games for Social Networks | Comment »

Niche vs. mass market in social games business

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 11:23:02 +0200

“So what I’m saying is that if that game is designed correctly, if it is monetized correctly, it can make $200,000, $300,000, even $500,000 a year. That’s totally feasible. Facebook is one of the only ecosystems where you can be that far down on the chart, and still be making a good profit.”

via gamasutra.com

In a Gamasutra feature, developers who have had success at Facebook with competitive games, argue for the viability of more niche audiences. The assumption is that while you will not gain the DAUs of the big hits, your ARPU and retention will be better. These are indeed key decisions social game developers face when thinking about new concepts and implementing them. However, the larger your company the higher you have to aim, obviously.

Posted via email from Games for Social Networks | Comment »